


text exchange

by popsick



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, References to Depression, they're probably aged-up?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-22 18:19:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15587901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/popsick/pseuds/popsick
Summary: max texts nikki on his 'dark days'.





	text exchange

**I know you get sad. A lot. But I want you to know we’re here for you.**

Max stared at his phone, reading the same message over and over and over and over again, until his head started to get dizzy. The words started to seem like they weren’t just words pulled together in a sentence—they started to become words that couldn’t exist or be said if not in the very same sentence.

 

Max didn’t know what was wrong with him. His eyes burned and his throat was so tight, his hands clutched his phone like he was holding onto it for dear life. If Max was his usual self, he’d be laughing his guts out, replying with something like, ‘What the fuck, that’s such a lame line.’ or maybe even a meme reaction picture. But Max didn’t have it in himself to do any of that.

 

Instead he just stared and waited, but the box where you’re supposed to write your reply to the other person was kept empty and blank, even though Max was trying very hard to come up with a clever comeback, a rhetoric answer—a _thank you._

 

Nothing came up.

 

Max stood up from his bus seat and grabbed his backpack from the compartments over his head and ran from the back of the bus, landing on the concrete sidewalk where he had just earlier held himself from breaking down on. Where he had just earlier wrapped his head around the fact that he was running away from home, without anyone to hold him back, and with nothing but a few change of shirts and hoodies and useless photos from Camp Campbell in his bag.

 

Max sat down on the bench behind the bus stop sign; people were looking at him, staring at him, and Max felt obligated to shrink himself further and further. _Why did I get off?_ Max thought.

 

There was a click in his head. A click? A crack? Did Max break himself?

 

And there she was. Nikki.

 

Walking toward him.

 

“Let’s go?” She said.

 

Nikki had her hand stretched out between them, and Max thought about how she’d always been this way. She was ultimately so unguarded and without any pretenses that she’d just be up and open and honest towards anyone that needed it. Max wondered how he looked at that moment; was he scared, relieved, crying?

 

Max didn’t know. If he was crying, and it was likely, that would be so pathetic.

 

Max took her hand in his and it was only then that he felt tears burning through his eyes and running down his cheeks.

 

So fucking pathetic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_I’m at the bus stop._

_I just wanted to let you know._

_I probably won’t be back in camp this summer._

Nikki stared at her phone, cried, and washed the tears away. She made it so that the tears had absolutely no trace on her face.

 

She had to be careful with Max, this time. She had to be okay. There was a reason why Max abandoned all logic and texted her, despite what he wanted to do--despite what he was attempting.

 

Nikki knew that if she wasn’t okay, Max wouldn’t have anything to hope for.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Hey Max, hold on a sec. I’ll be there. Just wait.**

**I brought pizza.**

**Open the door.**

Max stared at his phone, wondering how Nikki was able make everything seem like a normal Saturday afternoon, even though it wasn’t.

 

It was the exact opposite, in fact. It wasn’t Saturday, it was Wednesday. It wasn’t the afternoon, it was two in the morning and nothing was normal. Max remembers how Nikki told him she called it ‘dark days’. Maybe it had been one of those. A dark day. Max couldn’t function. He had laundry to put in the laundry machine and dishes to wash and a job to get to in the morning—it already _was_ morning—but Max felt his limbs torn from his control and all he could do was stare at the rope he had in his hands.

 

Max could hear the doorbell ringing, and his phone buzzing, and both of them are from Nikki. Max knew she was probably freaking out; Max knew she was probably as clueless about the whole thing as Max was, but he couldn’t help but think, _what if Nikki had the answers?_

 

Max shot back at himself, _the answers to what?_

 

Max hid the rope back into his drawers and approaches the door, looking through the peephole. Nikki was hurriedly brushing away her tears, as she’d probably heard Max shuffle toward the door.

 

Max opened the door, ever so slightly, and Nikki doesn’t hesitate to burst it open, a pizza box in hand and a smile bright on her face. Max almost flinched. _Almost._ He instead decided to stare.

 

“C’mon, Max. Let’s eat.” She said.

 

Max thought if it had always been this way, and it was just him that hadn’t noticed. Maybe she had cried before going to the bus stop where Max was, on the day he decided to run away. Maybe she had also cried on that other day, when Max talked about jumping from the building where he worked, since it esteemed itself in being the highest building in town.

 

Max wanted to know if she did, because in some sick way, it would make Max want to live.

 

But Nikki opened the pizza box, taking out a few slices and setting them on Max’s glass plates. She didn’t even have to ask where they were—she’d been over at Max’s house so many times; Max considered it a great possibility Nikki even knew he had a rope in the bottommost drawer of his dresser.

 

Max watched her.

 

He watched and he watched and he watched, and he catches it. And it’s there that Max wonders what he would’ve done if he hadn’t caught it.

 

Nikki’s fingers were trembling as she gave Max his plate.

 

Max didn’t have to ask if she’d cried. The answer was already there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_I can’t do shit_

_I can’t do the laundry_

_Can’t even wash the dishes_

_Nikki_

_I can’t do this anymore_

Nikki stared at her phone, and just ran.

 

Once she was in front of Max’s apartment, she called for a pizza delivery, and hoped Max would open the door.


End file.
